The first slaves arrived in Virginia around 1619, and slavery existed
in America for the next 250 years. Africans made up the largest number
of migrants to the New World during the colonial era, especially during
the eighteenth century. During the four centuries of the Atlantic slave
trade, an estimated 11 million Africans were transported to North and
South America.

In the United States, slaves had no rights. A slave could be bought and sold just like a cow
or horse. Slaves had no say in where they lived or who they worked for.
They had no representation in government. Slaves could not own property
and were not allowed to learn or be taught how to read and write.

Beginning in the 1750s, there was widespread sentiment that slavery was a social evil and should eventually be abolished, but even the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did not end slavery. Slavery
continued in the states that were part of the Union forces. Slavery came
to an end in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified after the end of
the Civil War.

Sample some of the following activities to learn more about slavery in
America.

The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out
about slavery in America.

Amistad On July 2, 1839, fifty-three African slaves on board the Amistad revolted
against their captors, killing everyone except the navigator of the ship.
The navigator sailed them to Long Island where they were put on trial for murder.

Levi
Coffin HouseLevi
Coffin was a Quaker abolitionist who has often been termed the "president"
of the Underground Railroad.." It is believed that Coffin and his
wife Catherine helped more than 2,000 fugitive slaves escape to freedom,
using this house as a principal depot.

Liberia
Travel to Liberia on the west coast of Africa. This country was founded
in 1821 by freed American slaves.

National
Underground Railroad Freedom Center
The mission of the National Underground Freedom Center is to educate people
on enslavement everywhere. Students can explore the Underground Railroad
and see how the fight for freedom continues today.

The
Confessions of Nat Turner
Meet Nat Turner. In 1831, he was the leader of the Southampton Insurrection.
A slave in Virginia, Nat Turner, along with about 60 other slaves, planned
an unsuccessful slave uprising. Nat Turner was captured and hanged for
his role.

Frederick
DouglassFrederick
Douglass was born in 1817 in Maryland, the son of a slave and
an unknown white father. He escaped from slavery in 1838 and took the
last name of Douglass
from Sir Walter Scott's hero in The Lady of the Lake.

Harriet:
The Moses of Her People
Meet Harriet Tubman. She escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1849 and
became one of the most famous conductors on the underground railroad,
leading more than 300 slaves to freedom.

Addy's
Escape to Freedom
From this site, based on the American Girls books, students can virtually
follow a family as they travel on the underground railroad to freedom.

Africans
in America
From PBS, this series calls itself "America's journey through slavery".
The website and the PBS series is in four parts, each with a historical
narrative, a resource bank, and a teacher's guide.

American
Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
Read first-hand accounts of the experiences of former slaves who lived
and worked on plantations, in cities, and on small farms. These narratives
were gathered by writers and journalists under the Works Progress Administration
in the 1930s.

Chronology
on the History of Slavery and Racism
Learn about the history of slavery in America. "A Dutch slave trader exchanged
his cargo of Africans for food in 1619. The Africans became indentured
servants, similar in legal position to many poor Englishmen who traded
several years labor in exchange for passage to America. The popular conception
of a racial-based slave system did not develop until the 1680's."

The
District of Columbia Emancipation Act
Learn about the law that came before the Emancipation Proclamation. "On
April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery
in the District of Columbia. Passage of this act came 9 months before
President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought
to conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates
called "the national shame" of slavery in the nation's capital."

Documenting
the American South
One of the sections is called On
The Old Plantation: Reminiscences of His Childhood by John George
Clinkscales (1855-1942). Read his remembrances of his childhood on a plantation
in South Carolina where his father owned many slaves. The author wrote
this account in 1916 when he would have been about 61 years old. In the
foreward of his account, he indicates that he wrote it for the benefit
of his children and grandchildren to let them know that "Slavery was not
all bad."

Juneteenth
Learn about the history of the celebration called Juneteenth.

Middle
Passages: Slaveship Database
Find a listing of slave ships 1817 to 1843. You can view the names of the ships that sailed
under the flags of America, Portugual, and Spain.

Missouri
Compromise
Explore how the Missouri
Compromise, which admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave state,
really addressed the issue of slavery.

Pink and Say
Visit your school or public library and check out Pink and Say by Patricia
Polacco. It tells the true story of Pinkus Aylee and Sheldon Russell,
Union soldiers. Pink was a former slave and Say was an Ohio farm boy.

Secret
Codes
Learn about the secret codes used by slaves to help them escape from slavery.

The
Thirteenth Amendment
Learn about the ammendment that abolished slavery as a legal institution.
It was ratified on December 6, 1865.

Underground
Railroad Special Resource Study (pdf)
In 1990, Congress authorized the National Park Service to conduct a study
of the Underground Railroad, its routes and operations in order to preserve
and interpret this aspect of United States history. You can view the results
of that study here.